Jade and Rust
by thoughts-of-joy-dreams-of-love
Summary: She was Catwoman: red-lipped, jade-eyed temptress, thing of gashes and diamonds. He was Batman: dark-cloaked, broad-shouldered hero, thing of myth and virtue. They're everything the other hates - and everything they can't live without. Oneshot exploring the relationship between the Dark Knight and a Gotham City Siren.


Veronica Vreeland's latest party is just lovely, everyone agrees. Gotham's elite has gathered for another one of Ms. Vreeland's glimmering charity balls, though no one can quite remember just what the charity is. There are so many other details to notice, after all, things so much more relevant to their own lives.

 _"So that's Daniel Mockridge's latest flame? I'm willing to bet she's 25 years younger. I wonder if she'll squeeze more gifts out of his purse than the last one…"_

 _"Is Summer Gleeson_ really _wearing that dress? She definitely looks skinnier on TV…"_

They'll donate a tiny fraction of their income by the time the night is over - and that fraction will be more than what most of Gotham could hope to make in their lifetime - but mostly they watch and gossip, with darting eyes that land on fashion faux pas and tense interactions, and wine-stained mouths that pick it all apart. Of course, Ms. Vreeland is the sun around which the party must orbit, and her waves of persimmon hair and sparkling conversation certainly provide entertainment. But there are other personalities weaving their way around the high-ceilinged ballroom, ones which demand attention even more than the diverting Veronica.

There is Bruce Wayne, of course, always dashingly handsome with his broad shoulders and eyes that hold a slice of winter sky, grey tinged with pensive blue. Every woman in the room has probably imagined themselves marrying him. After all, Wayne is one of the richest men in Gotham; people joke that he might bleed gold and copper. Given his lineage, it's not implausible to halfway believe that money runs in his veins. It is surely his money more than his character that draws eyes to him - that much wealth and power tends to lend a certain gravity to people no matter how sapless their personality is, the same way black holes are so dense nothing can hope to elude them. But even with his firmly cemented place in Gotham high society, he's always seemed somewhat distant - he is ever the perfect gentleman, of course, but there is a barrier between Bruce Wayne and the rest of them, some sort of veil woven of mystery and night that everyone can sense even if they can't put it into words.

But while Mr. Wayne is a staple at these events, there is another who appears only sporadically, flitting in and out of society on the most unpredictable whims. The impossibly beautiful Selina Kyle. Though Gotham's elite register Bruce's solitude on no more than a subconscious level, Ms. Kyle's could hardly be more obvious.

 _"Such a shame"_ , they whisper to each other. She is so pretty. She's got princess-yellow hair sitting heavy on her shoulders. She's got flinty eyes as rich as the jade in the choker around her neck, which is white and elegant like a Roman pillar. She's got long, white, Hollywood legs and a plum dress that clings tight to every curve and tangerine-painted nails that clash with it. _"Such a shame she's a little...well, you know."_ And they do. There was a time when Selina Kyle was growing to be one of the most desired women in the city, a time when she could have overtaken even Veronica Vreeland, their fiery-haired idol, as the queen of Gotham's parties - a very worthwhile title, obviously. But she had to throw it all out the window, didn't she? She wound up with a criminal record. She sauntered around Gotham in a kitty costume stealing whoever's property she wanted.

The partygoers watch her as she prowls around the room, light and sylph-like, seeming to ignore them just as much as they are glued to her. Privately, some think to themselves that she went about crime all wrong - quiet corruption is so much more rewarding in the end than that flashy act she pulled. Some are unnerved by her - they don't like to imagine that one of their own has a whole different identity that obscures its face and consorts with the night. Some are fascinated by her for the very same reason. But no one dares to approach. Despite her party invitation, she has forfeited any chance to truly belong with them.

But then - a figure breaks away from a cluster of people and begins to make his way over to her, his gait just as steady and lithe as hers. Within an instant, there are whispers: _"Oh my God. That's_ Bruce Wayne _going to talk to_ Selina Kyle _."_

It's a strange sight - the poster boy approaching the fallen woman. Some of them snicker: _"Poor Bruce got pulled right in…" "'Think_ he _can declaw her?"_

Soon, other topics are turned to, but nobody fails to keep an eye on Mr. Wayne and Ms. Kyle. Somehow, there's a similarity in the way they move. She has her back turned to him, slowly strolling along her current path, and he trails behind her almost as languidly, the two of them stepping in fluid motions that make them seem like mirror images. It's odd - they know Bruce to be so clumsy, but he is certainly keeping up with her. She seems to know he's there, and is simply playing a game in which, for once, she is not the cat. The women prickle, even some married ones. They would cut off their right hand for a private conversation with Bruce Wayne, and she won't even _look_ at him?

He continues to approach, close enough now to smell the perfume that graces her collarbone - an inebriating mix of sage and blackberry. His fingers twitch, too far away for his fellow partygoers to see, and he _wishes_ that he could just stay away from her, but he can't, not under either of his names. Whether she appears before him in a cocktail dress with heady perfume and softly lit by chandeliers, or in a skintight costume smelling of rust and concrete and framed by shadows - _just like him_ \- he cannot seem to stay away from her. With a hint of impatience, Bruce steps forward and reaches for her shoulder, but she whips around before he can touch her.

Stiffly, he dips his head. "Selina." He wonders if her catlike abilities might include hearing the thrum of his pulse.

"Bruce," she nods in reply, mechanically deigning to let him kiss her hand.

His eyes rise to hers as he bends his head. They are cold and neutral, and he resists the urge to smirk - just like a cat, her mood may change from moment to moment, and right now she hasn't quite decided how to treat him yet. His lips brush her skin, and he feels an ecstatic shiver sweep through him. By God, she is the only woman in the world who could make him feel like this just with a kiss of the hand - not even Talia could hope to affect him this way.

Selina, meanwhile, is impassive. He knows he looks the same, and a small, boyish part of him hopes that she is just as good at hiding her emotions as he is. Inside, though, he knows she isn't. She's simply not in love with Bruce Wayne.

"How are you enjoying the party?" he asks.

"Hmm...nice music," she says, closing her eyes and slightly tilting her head back, as if absorbing the ambient sounds of the string quartet. She opens her eyes and the irises slide sharply over to him. "'Can't say I'm impressed with much else, though."

He swallows. "Well...I'm glad you came. You look lovely tonight."

"You're genuinely glad I came? Well, Bruce, that would make you unique." She rolls her eyes and laughs, daring him to contradict her.

He grits his teeth, wondering why she has to make every interaction so _difficult_ , why they can't just have a normal conversation. But he knows, deep inside, that he wouldn't be so drawn to her if she wasn't all tartness and teeth and bloody nails. It's hard, and it's obnoxious, but he can't imagine Selina's dialogue being made up of narrow-minded gossip and hollow small talk.

"Selina - these people - they just don't - _see_ when they hurt - "

Her gaze darkens. "When they hurt...me? You think that I'm so _wounded_ by their hungry watching eyes, Mr. Wayne?" She draws closer to him, hissing under her breath, "And surely you're not dumb enough to say that they don't 'see' when they hurt people. Of course they do. And they enjoy it." She smirks, though he can still see an unflinching anger in her eyes. "But I'm no stranger to the feeling, either."

He hates himself a little bit. He doesn't even know why he came to talk to her. Part of it's because he just can't help himself, really, from being swept into her orbit, but he also wanted to make sure she was alright. Clearly, she is not in the mood for sympathy, and he, who usually knows just what to say, is making everything _worse_ -

"I didn't intend to...insult you." He says quietly. "I just thought I would check in with you. We...I haven't seen you in a while."

She seems to soften somewhat, folding her arms and tilting her head to consider him. "Of course, Bruce. You see, my socialite reputation has been somewhat tarnished, so I hardly bother to show up to these things…" She eyes the room and curls her lip. "When I do, it's more from a feeling of morbid curiosity than anything. Just to see when people will stop gawking at me like I'm a tiger in the zoo. At least you're not as much of a vulture as the rest of them."

He stares at her, pangs in his chest, and he hurts for her. His eyes trail over the smooth, curving planes of her face, the black crest of her lashes, the smoky jade clasped to her neck (he's never been jealous of jewelry before), and he hopes they don't betray the hunger that delves painfully through him. She is a cruel, solitary creature, but she is proud, too - she'll die before she admits it, but she wants to be admired and respected, not utilized as material for vapid chatter.

"You shouldn't torture yourself, Selina." He says bluntly. "If it hurts you, don't come to these things."

She flinches. "Why do you care, Bruce?"

Slowly, he answers, "I don't like to see you hurting."

Her eyes meet his again, a hint of confusion in their green depths. "Don't flatter me. You don't like to see _anyone_ hurting." She shifts her weight and fiddles with her hands. "I...appreciate you coming to talk, though. I was starting to get bored."

"Happy to oblige." He glances across the room, and of course, pairs of eyes are still flashing over at them.

"They're watching me." She says in a low voice.

"Maybe they're watching me."

"Us, then. Catwoman is enough of an attraction on her own, I suppose," she drawls. "But when pretty boy Bruce Wayne dares to draw near? Now _that's_ a curiosity. Maybe they're worried I'll taint you."

His jaw clenches. "Don't talk about yourself like that, Selina."

She glares at him again. "No? I don't sugarcoat things, Bruce. They think I'm a very, very bad girl. And they're not wrong, are they?"

His gaze fixes on her again, lingering over the electricity in her eyes and her red-lipped pout (No, actually, he will _not_ look at the pout). She is right. She's a selfish, volatile, stubborn, covetous siren of a woman who values herself above all other people, and it kills him because he _cares._ And he can see that there is more to her - her affection for creatures wild and free, her passion, her vulnerability, her mercurial, maddening love for -

For -

 _Batman._

She loves nightfall and secrets and adrenaline, and she is more like Bruce Wayne than she will ever be allowed to know. _That's the way it has to be._

"Maybe not," he answers, his voice strung tight. "But you didn't - _have_ to, Selina." He's angry at her, suddenly. He hates seeing her hurt but she does it to herself, and he hates seeing her fall back into her self-centeredness and pit herself against him, not that she knows it's _him_ , and not that they could be anything _anyway_ , because he can't really be with _anyone_ -

"You didn't have to, Selina," he repeats. "You didn't have to become Catwoman in the first place. And when you got caught, you didn't have to do it again."

Color rises in her cheeks. She looks more enchanting than ever. "You think you can understand, Mr. Wayne?" she breathes. "You - you businessman who spends your days in a steel tower doing everything you were born to do? You, whose reputation hasn't even a _speck?_ I may have said you weren't a vulture like the rest of them, but don't think you're so different. Don't think you can understand _any_ more about me than the rest of these socialites."

"Maybe I can," he growls, knowing he's dancing perilously close to an edge he cannot cross. He feels a fiery prickle under his skin and thinks about the hours spent in darkness, faceless and powerful as he oversees their beautiful, damned city - and he knows why she can't give Catwoman up, knows it at the very core of himself just like he knows he'll always want her, but at least his reason for Batman is rooted in something _worthwhile_.

She laughs harshly. "You can't. Forgive me if I've shattered any illusions of _uniqueness_. And even if you could, I wouldn't want you to."

"Why?" he says, and it comes out in a fierce whisper.

Her eyes widen, startled by his sudden shift in tone.

"Why do you want to be alone?" he asks her, the words falling heavy and slow like the first tentative drops of rain, threatening to become a downpour.

He is normally so in control. He is in control as the imposing Dark Knight and he is in control as the even-tempered Bruce Wayne. She ruins that and he has no idea what the hell he's doing.

She blinks once. Twice. The furious color in her cheeks bleeds away, leaving a face white as the moon he has kissed her under. He feels hate and devotion so strong they seep together, all for this woman who is the stinging rapture of iron in flesh, the harsh brilliance of jewels, the bittersweet burn of red wine, the chill of winter moonlight and the heat of tar all at once. Selina stares at him, something like war in her face, and then her lips part.

"I think...it is time for me to go home."

"Come to dinner with me first." He spits out the words before he considers them. He's mad as hell at her, but he knows what he wants and that's more time.

She raises an eyebrow, looking amused but also more bewildered every second. "Bruce. Surely you're smart enough to know that that's not a good idea."

"Don't think about it too much. We've gone out together before."

"Before my _conviction_ ," she hisses, fists clenched. "Don't be stupid, Bruce. My reputation is beyond repair, but you've got a business to run. Taking Catwoman on a date won't do you any favors in your circles."

He smirks, for once tonight feeling confident. "I don't care what anyone else thinks. I'm, well, _Bruce Wayne_ , Selina. There's very little I could do that would get me banished from high society."

"Getting caught running around in an animal costume might do the trick," she mutters, and he feels a brief flicker of panic before realizing that she seems to direct this at herself. "I'm serious, Bruce. The last thing I want to do is...damage you. In any way. Whether it's your reputation or…" She fixes him with a confused expression, uncertain words hanging on her mouth like a dubious test answer: _...your heart?_

He tries to mold back into his typical nonchalant character, although it seems a bit futile at this point. "Hey, one dinner between friends was all I suggested. I can't see what damage that would do." He can, of course, he just can't find it in himself to care. Or perhaps there is no more damage to be done, aside from a few more chips at his self-control.

She sighs and allows her gaze to sweep over the rest of the party guests. "Sorry. But...you really don't need someone like me hanging around. In another timeline it would be a predictable story - pretty blonde socialite and dark, handsome billionaire." She chuckles. "But dark, handsome billionaire and costumed cat burglar? Be realistic. You deserve someone less dangerous than me," she purrs, seriousness hiding beneath the sarcasm.

He clenches and unclenches his fists. She is dangerous, in more ways than one. If he let her get too close, she could rip his sanity apart at the seams at the same time she rips her own.

"What about you?" he asks. He must be losing his mind to be inciting her like this. "What do you deserve?"

Her face closes off again, as he knew it would. "Why, Bruce, you're really not acting very much like yourself tonight. I suggest you go find another girl you imagine is beautiful and sad and try to make her your project, okay?"

"I would hardly call a dinner a _project_ -"

She cuts him off with a glare. "And besides, I...well, I already have someone I...care for."

His throat immediately dries. She's talking about him. But not him. Not the "him" she knows. "Oh? Would I know him?"

"Hmm…no." she sighs. "I don't think anyone really does."

He simply stares at her for a few moments as she gets lost in her thoughts, watching the warm light paint strands of her hair strawberry. His heartbeat jumps, hearing her talk about him-but-not-him like this, and he remembers the way she looks at Batman, a glow in her eyes that he cannot forget. He hasn't seen that glow all night.

It's the strangest situation to be in. She only knows two sides of him, and neither of them are the whole truth. She loves Batman, her fellow thing of shadows and rust and leather, but not the mild-mannered, conventional caricature of Bruce Wayne he presents to the world. He lov- _cares_ about her, all of her, but it's horribly, horribly pointless. Pointless and dishonorable and stupid. He is not used to feeling that, nor the sick, thrilling delirium she breeds.

"Are you happy with him?" he finally asks, and he doesn't know why, because any answer she gives will either be complicated or a lie.

She looks his way and smiles, one of the few times he's seen something approaching tenderness cross her face. "As happy, I think, as I can be." She draws closer to him, lowering her voice. "And listen - don't think I don't appreciate you as a friend, Bruce. I do. You're better than every soul in the room and probably a good chunk of the city."

The two of them stare at each other for less than a few seconds, but he sees so much in the trembling jade of her eyes: a frantic cover-up of all vulnerability like throwing a sheet over a corpse, and affection for him that's not like her affection for Batman, but enough to make her pull away before she drags him into her tangled life of rebellion and villainy and freedom at all costs.

"Selina…" He feels light-headed and there is nothing else to the sentence. Only her. Her name.

"Goodnight, Bruce," she says, her face smoothed back into her usual proud mask, and she quickly strides past him, not even meeting his eyes.

He can't turn to watch her go, so he just listens to the click of her heels, each one like a hammer in his temple. He hates her and how he understands more of her than he should, and at the same time not enough. He hates how she reflects every dark part of himself back to him, every moment in his life that has created the thing he is now, all the way back to a night in an alley and a ripped string of pearls. She is everything he is and everything he cannot be all at once - she is all of his darkness and power and mystery, but she is _free_ , and she lets herself love and be flesh and blood in a way Batman can't. Batman is more icon than human, and that's the one thing that keeps this city from going completely over the edge. He knows that.

He looks up as two partygoers drift over to him, athletic businessmen who look so similar they could be brothers, though he knows they're not. They just have the same brand of tuxedo and watch and the same hairstyle and the same king-of-the-world tilt to their mouths that so many of these people have. It doesn't normally grate on Bruce, the vapidness of them; it's simply a part of the world he inhabits. Tonight, though, he hates them and the emptiness behind their eyes. They have not deserved to have someone as fiercely alive as Selina in the same room as them.

"You look a bit...deflated, Mr. Wayne," one of them chuckles, raising his glass. "Ms. Kyle is a feisty one, isn't she?"

He smiles thinly. He's not entirely sure who these two are, but he assumes they're up and coming and desperate to forge a connection with the most successful business in the city - and, probably, to collect some prized gossip about Catwoman. "Sure."

"You know, I've always wondered what goes on in her head," the other juts in, clearly buzzed on his champagne and maybe something stronger. "You've got to be a real weirdo to want to do what she did - it's kinda hot, though."

Bruce's jaw clenches. He imagines how rewarding it would be to punch through his evenly tanned yuppie face and hear the crunch of his teeth as they fall out of his mouth like a child's. That is the kind of thing he saves for criminals, though. Batman must be in control, always.

"My apologies, gentlemen, but I was actually just about to go home myself." He says. For once, he doesn't think he has the strength to chatter through the rest of this party.

Their faces fall in unison, and the more buzzed of the two chuckles nervously . "So soon? What did Miss Kitty say to you?"

Bruce waves a hand dismissively, but on the inside he feels like he's burning up. "Nothing. I was planning to leave around this time anyway." He brings a cardboard smile to his face and shakes their hands. "Give my regards to Ms. Vreeland."

He ignores the disappointment on their faces as he turns away. He can do whatever he wants. He can leave the party early without even saying goodbye to Veronica, because he's Bruce Wayne and he practically owns Gotham, and Batman does, too. (But doesn't Gotham own him - didn't it slaughter his family and didn't it rebirth a new him out of shadows and didn't it lay down the fractures which keep him from Selina - from humanity - from the him he might have been?)

As he walks down the hall, he closes his eyes for a second and steadies himself against the wall. There are some things he just doesn't think about. If it wasn't for Selina, he wouldn't be thinking about them.

Bruce steels himself as he always does and walks on, already thinking of the night ahead, of the criminals he will hunt and the research he will do and the hero he must be - and there is no space for soft touches or jade eyes or fallibility in that, none at all.

-:-

Wind rushes forcefully against Catwoman's face as she backflips off the edge of a building. For a few moments she is surrounded by nothing but cool air and the insomniac noises of Gotham. She is weightless and brilliant. Free. There are few other people in this city as strong and talented as she is, people who come alive in the darkness instead of cowering in fear. She can't blame her fellow Gothamites for their fear, of course, not when nighttime is when clowns and scarecrows come out to play. But the crazies in this town have never scared her, at least not enough to make her end her adventures. They only come out after dark because it's convenient, but she - she is a daughter of the night. She loves it and it loves her.

Her feet land with a precise click on the next rooftop, and she draws in a deep breath as she gazes out at the skyline. If she didn't know any better she could almost mistake the view for that of any other big city, like New York or Metropolis. But they don't have the wind of madness that whistles throughout Gotham's streets, the stains of blood or chemicals that never got cleaned from sidewalks, the lurking gargoyles and the dead man's mansion out on a hill, where Gotham's golden boy lives all alone.

She shakes her head as she thinks of Bruce Wayne. One might expect him to be a little more... _interesting_ with the dark past and all. But he's a simple man, really, and witnessing his parents' murder seems to have been a mere blip in the relentless trudge of his destiny - which was, of course, to inherit the Wayne fortune and be rich and respected and talked about. _His whole life was spelled out decades before he was born_ , she thinks. She supposes she ought to envy him like the rest of the city does, but she can't envy someone who lives like that, every day the same as the rest. She wonders, sometimes, what her life would be like if she had chosen that path; abandoned the thievery that helped create her socialite lifestyle and married Bruce Wayne in a lavish newspaper wedding, with smiling children and perhaps an expensive foreign dog to follow soon after. _Bruce seems like much more of a dog-person than a cat-person_ , she decides, and the Selina Kyle everyone wants her to be wouldn't have defied her husband on even simple things like that, would she?

Catwoman continues to stride along the edge of the rooftop, relishing the spike of her heartbeat as she takes in the drop to the pavement. No, a life as Bruce's wife wouldn't be enough for her, not when she has this night wind and adrenaline. He is good at heart, yes, and she's been attracted to him on some level - but he doesn't have that _spark_ that will capture her interest.

 _Well, he showed a little of it the other night._ She remembers Veronica Vreeland's party. More emotion than she'd ever seen Bruce display had bubbled up from him that night - all anger and hurt and a concern for her that she hadn't realized the depth of. It's….intriguing that he still has some feelings for her, even after only a couple dates and the sensational Catwoman trial that followed, but she's sure he will forget about them again as soon as another long-legged lady strolls across his path. _There's no shortage of women to entertain Bruce. I was just the one he happened to come across that night._

She leaps onto the next rooftop with ease. No, it isn't easy for anyone to attract her attention, much less her passion. There is only one man who has ever held her heart in its totality, and of course he's hardly a man at all -

She skids to a stop just before she makes the next jump. He is there, on the neighboring roof, nothing but a tall, inky silhouette with two pointed ears and piercing white eyes. She tries to catch her breath. _Hardly a man at all._

The two of them stare at each other for a moment, tension crackling in the air between them like an electric storm. She purses her lips and straightens up, trying to look haughty and proud, and not at all like the simple sight of him makes her blood sizzle in her veins.

"You always seem to find me, Batman." she drawls. "Are you looking?"

"Hardly." His voice is dark and deep with an almost - _feral_ edge to it. He sounds like power embodied. It makes her shiver. "You just always seem to be looking for trouble."

She cocks her head. "Things that get you in trouble are always so much prettier than things that don't - wouldn't you agree?"

He stays silent, and Catwoman smirks. _This_ \- this is why she can never be drawn to anyone else like she is to the Batman. He is frightening and terrible, like the gods of ancient stories. He has been a part of Gotham for so long they barely pause to consider his humanity anymore, but she knows that it exists. She's felt it in the hot slickness of his mouth on hers. Gods don't feel like that.

She leaps forward, landing just inches away from him. She notices the slight tensing of his body and feels a heady sense of satisfaction - or power.

"What are you doing out here?" he growls.

"Can I not just be having an adventure?" she answers. "I haven't stolen anything tonight, if you were wandering. I just wanted to be...out."

He eyes her. She knows that if she were any other criminal he wouldn't believe her, but she can tell he does. And it _is_ true. She just wanted to be out of her apartment, out of Selina Kyle's life and into Catwoman's, where she is just as inhuman as he is. And yet - she wouldn't love that inhumanity nearly so well if there wasn't a scrap of weakness that only _she_ can tease out.

She steps even closer to him and allows her knee to brush up against his. His face doesn't change, but she hears his intake of breath. He never instigates but he never resists, either.

"So, Bats," she breathes. "I haven't stolen anything. You have no reason to chase me. Unless, of course, you just want to."

She moves to step past him, and he grabs her wrist, his gloved hand entirely encompassing her arm. She feels something in her soul like the cut of a blade, nothing but gasping sting and pure sensation. She loves him and hates him all in an instant. Hates how he tries to control where she goes. Loves that he wants her enough to try.

"Selina," he says, twisting her around to face him. "Don't - "

Before he can say anything else, she kisses him, sharp and quick. His grip on her wrist tightens enough to hurt, and she nips his bottom lip before wrenching away and darting across the rooftop. _Chase me, chase me -_

He does. Of course he does. He overtakes her and grabs her arm again. " _Selina_ \- "

"Call me Catwoman," she hisses, and this time, she can't tell who kisses who first - they move toward each other as one, and suddenly he has one hand around her waist and her tongue is dragging across his bottom lip. She tastes iron and feels the wound on his lip where she'd bitten him.

He is brilliant. They are brilliant. They are two creatures of shadows. Of blood on knuckles like poppy blooms. Of smoke and magnets. Of vanishings and terror. But his terror is a just terror, while hers - hers is _wild_ -

Batman's hand is on the back of her head, grasping as if he's trying to wrap it in her hair. She wonders if he would like kissing her better without the costume, where he could run his fingers through her hair, blonde like a girl in a fairy story. _But would we still want each other without the costumes?_ She wonders. She doesn't want to be a girl. She wants to be a calamity.

He breathes heavily through his nose, keeps tugging her against him like he's trying to crush them together so that their ribs will interlock and their hearts will pulse right up against each other. Some delirious part of her wants to run her hand over his face and shush him, whispering, _Shh, we're already one; we're made of the same dark stuff, don't you see? No one in the whole world is like we are._ But it's only half true, isn't it? They are one and the same and yet cast as far apart as two people could be.

"Sometimes," she breathes. "I wonder - if you would just let yourself go - if you just ended your little crusade and did whatever you want - "

"You mean be a criminal? Like you?" He pulls back and glares at her fiercely. "I already do what I want. What I want is to save this city."

"But you never will." She whispers. "Gotham never wanted to be saved."

"Tell that to the Joker's victims. Tell that to the addicts who got hooked by Thorne and Stromwell." He hisses and steps away from her. "Don't tell me you have no sympathy for them. I'll know you're lying."

She scowls. She may be a thief, but she's not a killer. "It's not that I don't think it's horrible. It's just that I know it's a lost cause."

"Better to fight for a lost cause than not fight at all." he says solemnly, and she could almost laugh at how cliche it sounds.

"Let's not talk about it anymore," she says. She wraps her arms around his neck and lets her head rest on his chest.

He hesitates before surrounding her in his arms, and for a while they simply stand there. She hears him breathe, the sound vast like something old and monstrous living in a cavern. He is too powerful to let himself be ruled by something like the law, she thinks. She doesn't know what he's been through, but she's always been able to detect the depth of rage inside him. In any other circumstance, it wouldn't be so hard for Batman to be a Joker or a Two-Face. Or a Catwoman.

"You could be different too." His hand trails along her spine. "You could live for something that matters. You have the talent."

She feels a twinge deep inside her - it feels something like regret, but her pride overrides it. "I already do. I live for myself and all the things I want."

"Things you didn't earn?"

She chuckles. "I work hard for my victories, Bats. I would say I've earned them."

He does nothing but sigh in response and press his lips to the corner of her jaw. She likes feeling him give up. He is ice and steel in everything except for her.

Their lips connect again, slower this time, their kiss like the seethe of coals instead of the roar of a fire. She could be different, technically. But she won't and he should know it. She can't resist prowling along the rooftops, seeing her city from a viewpoint most Gothamites never will. Nothing makes her feel alive like the chase does. She'll just have to be more careful from now on, that's all.

"You know your life will be ruined if you get caught again." He murmurs.

"Good thing the police are incompetent and you won't turn me in," she grins against his mouth and he shudders like he's fighting off guilt. She presses her lips to his almost gently before speaking again. "And it's not as if you take no risks either - you'll get yourself killed one day."

"For justice. It'll be worth it." He says before his tongue is in her mouth again.

He tastes like rust and gunpowder. She wonders if she's tasting how he'll die - bullet under skin and blood pooling out, like so many other men have gone before him.

Catwoman squeezes her eyes shut and presses herself even closer to him, not wanting an inch of separation. She hates to think of him dead. It makes her stomach turn over like she's about to be sick. _Maybe that's love_ , she thinks wryly. The thought of her own death doesn't scare her half as much, that's for sure, though she supposes it's the same for him. No matter what path they're on, Batman and Catwoman will somehow be chipping their way to self-destruction.

She doesn't know how long they're entwined for, but she feels like could do it forever. She has dreams, sometimes, of them being found out. A poor civilian gazing out his window at two in the morning, the damn sirens keeping him awake - New York never sleeps because it doesn't want to, Gotham never sleeps because it _can't_ \- and then, by chance, he glances upward, and sees two figures on the roof across the street. _Catwoman_ \- red-lipped, jade-eyed temptress, thing of gashes and diamonds - kissing _Batman_ \- dark-cloaked, broad-shouldered hero, thing of myth and virtue. She can imagine the papers - the outrage, the scandal, their guardian is not infallible after all. And _she_ made him that way. She took him, pure even in his violence, and made him fall for the very type of person he denounces.

She would feel guilty if it didn't feel so good, knowing that she has kissed a legend and brought him to knees.

At some point, his face is in the crook of her shoulder and her hand is running over the back of his head. She can feel his heartbeat whirring through the suit, and she thinks she feels something inside her crack, like a chink of sunlight breaking through clouds. She has the Batman in her arms. She's had a myth clutch at her like she keeps him alive. And she loves him, she thinks. Even as she hates him and ruins him she thinks she loves him.

"You're never going to get rid of me," she whispers. She kisses his cheek. "Do you wish that you could?"

"I should." He breathes. The edge to his voice has all but disappeared, and he sounds more vulnerable than he ever has. It stirs a feeling of familiarity inside her, but she can't place it.

For now, at least, she doesn't really want to know who he is anyway. For now, she loves him best as only partially human. But she can tell the the deeper this goes, the more it won't be enough.

"But you don't?"

"No."

They stay like that a few moments longer, and it feels _normal,_ almost, just a man and a woman in love, not a hero and a criminal in hate in desire in who knows what. But then, she sees a light flash across the sky, and the Bat symbol is there, dominating the city.

He turns his head to see and instantly pulls away from her. "I have to go."

She winks, trying to hide the part of her that wishes they could have just a little more time. "Until next time, Bats."

"Go home, Selina." He answers. "You don't know what's out here tonight."

He jumps off the roof without saying another word, cape billowing out behind him. She peers off the edge, but already he is gone, like a ghost in the fog.

She shakes her head, wondering how life made them the way they are now, very dark and a little bit crazy. They are a tangled mess of love and hate, weakness and strength, scratches and kisses, jade and rust.

She doesn't know if either of them will ever figure themselves out. But she, for her part, doesn't really care.

-:-

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